Birthday Wishes
by Alleonh
Summary: One-Shot-- Set early season one. A brief look at the importance of birthdays and family to a fledgling expedition in a strange new galaxy.


This fic was written for the Family Challenge at SGA Flashfic

Disclaimer: This was written for fun by a fan of the show and characters. Nothing more.

Setting: Takes place right right before the episode "Before I sleep" (more importantly, the scene where John gives Elizabeth that Athosian jar for her birthday)

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**Birthday Wishes**

Dropping into the desk chair, he flicked the lamp on absently before rubbing his hands over his tired eyes with a heavy sigh. For Major John Sheppard, this was always the worst experience as a military officer. He opened the laptop cover, watching but not seeing the computer coming alive and the Atlantis logo spinning once before revealing a password input screen. He might have entered a password, but he wasn't really thinking about it, and it was all automatic at this point.

A few precise clicks opened the military roster, a few more brought up the smiling face of a twenty-eight year old Sergeant, who, up until three hours ago, was alive. John moved the cursor over the page, hesitating on the line he was to edit, like stalling in this action would undo the Wraith feeding that reduced a strong, healthy young man to a withered lifeless husk.

Swallowing, John clicked on the Status bar, highlighting "Active" and backspacing, deleting it. There was finality in that, but then, there always was. In its place was typed "KIA- December 1, 2004". He saved the file, and attached a copy to an e-mail to Elizabeth, along with the surviving team members' mission reports on how the simple trading mission had gone from routine to nightmare in a span of heartbeats. Just one more in a long line of examples of how "routine" was a joke in the Pegasus Galaxy dictionary.

Before he closed the window, he read over the Sergeant's dossier one last time. Kyle Mitchell, age 28, date of birth... John blinked, and somehow the unfairness of it hit him like a fist to the gut. Mitchell's birthday was listed as November 28, only three days ago, three days before his death. Had anyone known? Had anyone cared?

John cared. But he hadn't known. They had been on Atlantis long enough to form bonds and friendships, so John knew that somewhere in the city, Mitchell had been surrounded by friends on his birthday; even if those friends had not known about the significance of the day.

John himself had never been one to harp on his birthday. Birthday cards, cakes, and candles were a little out of place in Afghanistan, or at McMurdo. And as the years went by, birthdays had began to be dreaded just a little bit. It symbolized aging, when the aches and pains didn't go away with a good night's rest, and the body just wasn't quite as fast or agile as it used to be, regardless of how the mind pushed it.

But things were different now.

Not long after stepping through the gate into Atlantis, John had told told Elizabeth that they needed _ friends. _Lost somewhere in that statement was the assumption that they, the expedition members, were family. Just because it was unspoken didn't make it less true, it just meant you were deluding yourself by ignoring it. He hoped that Mitchell had known that, and that three days ago he had enjoyed a birthday surrounded by _family. _

John sat still for a moment, considering, before an impulse moved him to retrieve the calendar hanging on the wall above his desk. It was one of those generic campaign calendars for the US Air Force. "Aim High" and all that. John picked one up every year because to him it was a check list. He'd flown most of the crafts shown, and had been steadily marking them off the list before he'd come to Atlantis and become aware of a whole new galaxy of flying craft to test out. Somehow he doubted that a Puddle Jumper would ever make the calendar. Too bad.

Spreading the calendar out beside him, he turned back to his computer and reaccessed the personnel database. Since McKay would probably bitch the most if forgotten, he brought his profile up first. April 18th. April, that would be the F-14 Tomcat, good month. John flipped back and jotted "Rodney's Birthday" in the correct square. John glanced around self consciously. Okay, that was a little too obvious, and kind of weird to boot. He erased that, replacing it with "Science conference w/ Rodney" and added a tiny "(BD)" in the bottom corner just to remind him of the fact. He nodded to himself, pleased as he dove back into the dossiers to find the next entry. He steadily filled the calendar, noting with some amusement that he shared a birthday with Carson. Each entry was disguised as a meeting or a training session, or something else equally innocuous, but each bearing the (BD) in the bottom corner. He grinned when he realized this would be a great cover to show Elizabeth next time she complained that he had too much free time on his hands to continue ignoring his ample paper work. The way the calendar looks, he was booked for the next year solid with events!

He flipped the calendar back to December. Elizabeth's birthday was coming up in less than a week. He had a visit to the mainland scheduled for later in the day, maybe he could get one of those earthenware pots he'd seen on his last trip. And while he was there he could figure out how the Athosians celebrated birthdays, so that Teyla could be added to the list as well.

When he rehung the calendar on its nail some time later, his heart felt a little lighter than it had. They had still lost someone, and that couldn't be changed. But at the very least, John could show everyone that they were remembered; even if it was only a word, a simple birthday wish.

End

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A/N: I saw "Before I Sleep" and the biggest awww moment for me is when John gives Elizabeth a birthday present. It's sweet and kind of unexpected, and I just had an urge to run with that concept. Problem: They've never revealed the birthdays for any of the characters. so... I just went with the actors B-days instead. So yes, it's true that Paul and Joe share a birthday (Jan 5) :D But I have to make special mention to someone who's b-day I had to change/ignore. Rainbow Sun Frank's b-day is Dec. 3, three days before Torri's . Bad Aiden Ford! Messing up my continuity! Bad! sooo... we're just going to pretend that his b-day comes some other time of the year!


End file.
